DISASTERS AT SEA.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXII, Issue 19, 23 January 1901, Page 2

DISASTERS AT SEA.

WRECKS AND LOSS OF LIFE. (.WIDESPREAD DESOL ATI OX. The closing days of last year were, marked by storms which will be long remembered by sea-faring folk of many and widely separated lands. The Pacific Ocean forgot its name, and reports from Port Townsend are to the effect that full returns with regard to the disasters will show the storm of late December to have inflicted the greatest loss in the "history of Pacific Coast shipping. Many, vessels, as in the case of the German ship Carl, wheat-laden from Tacoma for Europe, were able to return to port, though in a water-logged and disabled condition, owing to a succession of severe g~ales encountered. Cargoes were jettisoned everywhere, and the men who escaped the fury of the elements, and brought their ships to harbour, . considei-ed themselves lucky. The enumeration of the vessels 'which suffered 'and barely escaped would include all the craft which were caught, at sea. Among the losses wais that of the steamer Alpha, driven ashore in Brsines Sound, in the vicinity of Vancouver. Plucky seamen volunteered to swim ashore with lines, and by this means twenty-five members of the crew were saved. The captaiu, engineers, and others decided to stay with the vessel and try to save her from being a total wreck. By this means nine lives were lost, as fearful. seas swept over the fihip and destroyed her. THE RATHDOWN. It is probable that the British ship Rathdown. a fine three-masted vessel Iwith double top-gallant yards, of two Ithousand and fifty-eight tons, will Ison be posted missing. She is now §91 days out from Yokohama in balllast for Portland, and is believed to Ihave gone down. About the time the iship sailed from Japan a typhoon jfraged in the same latitude, and it is Ifeared the vessel, being light, was Iswamped or overturned. The price of ire-insurance has been mounting steadlily, and is now quoted at 8% per cent.; | with few takers, though the ship is ] i known to be staunch. j 1 The steamer City of Topeka, of San: I Francisco, is a total wreck in Lynnj j Canal, forty miles from Juneau, Sj Alaska. The passengers and crew, | numbering1 100, were saved by a for-1 | tunate chance. The steamer left I Skagway on December 9, bound for a Seattle.' Captain Olsen, one of the Boldest pilots on the run, was in command. The wind was blowing a gale from the north. -As the hours passed: the storm became more intense, and a blinding- snow began to fall. The; captain and two pilots were on the' bridge, brrt it was decided to put bade! to Haines Mission. At half-past five1 o'clock, in darkness, and with the! wind enveloping the vessel in clouds of snow and spray, the Topeka struck the rocks on her port broadside, tearing two jagged holes, one ten and one twenty feet long, below the waterline. The ship listed badly, but the s"hock was not severe, and the passengers retained their calm. All hands were piped to lower the boats. The ropes were covered with ice, and a d-elny of thirty minutes ensued before launching. The passengers and crew behaved with the greatest fortitude, and oheered whe.n the ship's searchlight disclosed the shore not mjore than a hundred yards distant. Blankets we.re stripped from the beds, provisions hastily collected, and fires built. The terrible storm raged steadily, and not until December 13th were the last of the passengers rescued and taken to Juneau on the steamer' Riistler. The British ship Oromartyshire narrowly escaped destruction in the gale on the Pacific. These vessels will be remembered because of having sent to the bottom of the Atlantic the French liner La Bourgogne, July 4, 1898, with 540 persons. The Cromartyshire was not seriously damaged at the time, and the crew assisted in saving men, women and children, who had jumped into the sea. Captain Reid and the crew fully expected to be lost in the hurricane which raged on the Pacific, December 19, but by timely use of oil managed to escape and to creep into the harbour of San Francisco with the ship in a badly disabled condition. ,The Cromartyshire left Astoria on December 8 for Que€nstown, laden with 10,669 centals of wheat and forty-two centals of barley. Trouble began on December 15, when a terrific squall sent the ship on her beam ends. Three thousand bags of barley werej jettisoned. The starboard bulwarks and stanchions between the fore and main rigging were broken away. The bulwarks were lashed up with wire, the crew working up tlo their necks in water. Gale after gale struck the ship till December 19. when the hurricane came with a frightful sea. It was then in desperation and with great difficulty that several barrels of oil were poured overboard. The breaking ceased and the crippled vessel was able to make port, where she will be repnirPd. The Atlantic liners have all been much delayed, and the passengers suffered severely from the hardships incident to unusually heavy weather. The ship Challenger, from LadyRmith, 8.C., for Kahului, is another vessel which managed to put in at San Francisco, dismasted and disabled by the battle with *the stornu The following1 are additional details of the trouble on the Pacific Coast, with some acoonnts of. disasters abroach"—' PORT TOWNSEND. Wn«V. Dec. 28. —Theßritish stenmshi;- '"-v ~< nr .

I rived from Japan, and according toY I reports of her officers the recent j |»storms extended many miles from thej I coast. On Christmas Day the Glen-; I turret encountered a gale of unusual* | violence 900 i^iles off Cape Flattery,! f|and notwithstanding she was running! I before the gale great seas swept heij |f decks, smashing one of her lifeboats.^ land washing everything movable; loverboard. The . gale lasted? Hmore than twenty-four hours,? land during that time the vessel^* H laboured heavily, and for a time it; I was a light for Life with those onf i| board. Her officers say it was thej imost furious gale they ever expenencicd. She was sent to Diamond Point Station for fumigation. j E in a partly dismasted condition, | otherwise badly battered and minus jjber deck load, the Chilian barque TeIMnnco crept into the harbour of Port Townsend on December 29th. The vessel passed through the storm that inflicted damage on many vessels north of here. The Chilian barque reported that she sighted an unknown ship noa-ting bot-| I torn up off the Vancouver shore. Ship-j i ping men in this city are much coni cerned by this report and are speculat- | ing on the identity of the derelict. 58 There is no clue, however, that seems; 1 likely to solve the mystery. t.